1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to telecommunication systems, and in particular, to a system and method for controlling devices at a location.
2. Background of the Invention
Emergency telephone services are implemented throughout the world to receive calls that report emergency situations. In the United States, when a caller dials 911, the emergency call is routed to a public safety answering point (PSAP), which dispatches emergency response professionals. The emergency response professionals may include police officers, fire fighters, and paramedics. The PSAP receives from the caller critical information such as the location of the emergency, the type of emergency, and whether anyone is in imminent danger.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing a prior art system architecture of a 911 service in the United States. The 911 service is initiated when a caller at location 100 uses telephone 102 associated with telephone line 104 to dial the number string “911.” The emergency call or the 911 call is automatically routed by public switched telephone network (PSTN) 106 to PSAP 108, which is usually operated by police, fire, or other emergency response professionals. The communication between the caller and PSAP 108 is a POTS (plain old telephone service) voice session.
Unlike regular telephone connections between a caller and a called party in which both parties have control over the connection, control of a 911 call rests exclusively with the called party, in this case PSAP 108. The caller of a 911 call, after establishing the POTS session, cannot terminate the session. That is, once the call is connected, only PSAP 108 could end the call, usually after the emergency has been adequately resolved. This unique feature of 911 calls is necessary to ensure that the POTS session remains intact, even if the caller accidentally hangs up telephone 102, but picks up telephone 102 again at a later time, until the emergency is resolved.
Another feature of emergency telephone services is the capability of identifying the caller's location, i.e., location 100. For wireline telephones, the telephone service provider or PSAP 108 can maintain a 911 database, e.g., database 110, cataloging the street address for every telephone line in the area for which PSAP 108 is responsible. Referring to FIG. 1, when a 911 call is made using telephone 102, the street address at which the 911 call originated, i.e., the street address of location 100, can be retrieved from database 110 based on the calling party number (“CgPN”) of telephone line 104 that was used to initiate the call. In other words, the telephone number of telephone line 104 is related to the street address of location 100 in database 110. Database 110 may be hereinafter referred to as the 911 database. For 911 calls initiated by wireless telephones, several means for determining the calling party's location are being implemented in accordance with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s Enhanced 911 (E911) mandate.
The emergency telephone services known in the art today are limited to voice communications such as the POTS session described above. In the future, however, multimedia communication sessions, including data sessions, will be more prevalent. Multimedia communication sessions could be established using, for example, integrated voice, data and video services such as those available with digital subscriber line (DSL), broadband integrated services digital networks (B-ISDN), and the like. A person could have an internal computer system within his or her “multimedia capable” home. The internal computer system may be a local area network (LAN) having a number of component systems. The internal computer system can communicate with outside entities. The communication between the internal computer system and the outside entities may be via an external computer network. The external computer network may be, for example, the Internet.
Although the internal computer system can communicate with the outside entities using PSTN 106, the internal computer system may not be fully integrated with PSTN 106. That is, if a caller places a 911 call using the internal computer system over the voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP), even though PSAP 108 can communicate with the caller, it cannot control the call, i.e., PSAP 108 does not have exclusive control over the VoIP communication session. As a result, the caller's communication with PSAP 108 could be disconnected prematurely before PSAP 108 could adequately assess the emergency situation. Thus, a vital capability of emergency telephone services is not available for the subscriber when he calls PSAP 108 using a non-POTS technology.
FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing a prior art system architecture of a private security system. Location 200 may be a private residence or a commercial building. Location 200 has telephone 202 that is associated with telephone line 204. Location 200 is equipped with security system 212, which may be more commonly known as the burglary alarm system.
Security system 212 may include, for example, one or more sensing apparatus such as a motion detector or glass-break sensor. When one sensing apparatus is triggered, security system 212 can use telephone line 204 to contact private security firm 214 via PSTN 106. Private security firm 214 would then attempt to verify whether the triggering event warrants a dispatch of emergency response professionals. For example, private security firm 214 might call someone associated with location 200 to determine whether the triggering event was a false alarm, a minor accident for which no emergency response team is needed, or another non-life-threatening incident.
If private security firm 214 cannot verify that the triggering event is not a non-life-threatening incident, private security firm 212 calls PSAP 108 to report the emergency. More often than not, however, the call to PSAP 108 is unnecessary. For example, one of the sensing apparatus might have been triggered accidentally. For example, it is known that loud thunder could cause a glass-break sensor to go off, thereby dispatching the police to location 200 unnecessarily, and resulting in wasted resources.
Technologies associated with the existing 911 service and private security system, as they exist today, are adequate to receive calls that report emergency situations. These existing technologies, however, have a number of shortcomings. First, as discussed above, the existing technologies do not give VoIP emergency calls the same level of protection as calls received from POTS callers. Second, PSAP 108 does not have means for assessing, monitoring, resolving, or otherwise handling an emergency situation other than receiving second-hand information about the emergency situation from the caller. Third, emergency response personnel and equipment are often dispatched to the emergency scene without knowing what emergency response equipment or personnel are required. Fourth, valuable resources are often wasted when emergency response personnel and equipment are dispatched to situations that could have been resolved without the dispatch. Fifth, private security firms cannot adequately prescreen or verify reported emergency situations before dispatching the police or other emergency response team to the scene.